Page 81 of Twisted Lies

Both stopped speaking, as though some kind of impasse had been reached.

Anna glanced over at the car park, said one more thing and headed back into the building.

Liam hesitated for a full twenty seconds before heading over towards the cars.

Neither appeared to be aware they’d been playing to an audience.

‘What was all that about?’ Bryant asked, switching off the engine.

‘Not sure, but I think we should go and find out. You go after her and I’ll go after him.’

Sixty-Nine

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Stacey called out as Penn wrote down the seven names mentioned in a three-page news report on the UKPPS just a week earlier.

Penn stood back and looked at the board that was now full of names and positions.

‘Second name down, Amelia Dixon, Accounts Executive, was in that position but isn’t anymore.’

The name quoted in the most recent article had been Hilary Owens.

‘Gotta be worth taking a closer look at Amelia Dixon,’ Penn said as his office phone sounded a single ring, indicating it was an internal call.

‘Yo, Jack,’ he said, taking a gamble it was the desk sergeant. He just hoped it wasn’t DCI Woodward.

‘Got a lady down here. Wants to report her husband missing,’ Jack said as Penn breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Got any details?’ he asked, not wanting to be pulled away unnecessarily from the potential new lead they’d just uncovered.

‘Yeah, he’s nothing like the description you gave me, which is why I’m calling you,’ Jack offered sarcastically.

‘Oh, Jack, you’re too—’

‘Look, I’ve got a houseful down here. She says he’s late-thirties, reddish hair, average build, blue eyes…’

‘And?’

‘Yes, he had an appendectomy in his teens.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Penn said, ending the call.

Seventy

Kim aimed for the supply teacher as Bryant headed into the school.

‘Everything okay?’ she asked, taking Liam Docherty by surprise.

‘Just a disagreement over priorities,’ he explained, putting his belongings in the back seat of his Ford Focus.

‘Can you just answer a couple of questions before you go?’

‘Of course,’ he said, leaning against the car.

‘Tommy Phipps, was he good friends with any other boy in particular?’ Kim asked. If they could confirm he had accounts on social media, they could check to see if he’d been compromised in any way or had put something out there that had somehow led the killer to them.

Liam shook his head. ‘Not that I saw. It was a concern to us that Tommy didn’t really mix with any of his classmates. We tried to include him—’

‘So you don’t know if anyone might have helped him set up a Facebook page or an Instagram account?’